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'CYNDI LAUPER IN PARIS,' ON HOME BOX OFFICE

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THE Cyndi Lauper experience can be discombobulating. In some of her music videos, the costumes convey the impression that she might be auditioning to impersonate Judy Garland doing ''Be a Clown.'' But since going solo in the early 1980's, after years of being lead singer with a new-wave rock group called Blue Angel, Ms. Lauper has been riding a formidable crest of hit albums and singles. In the tough business of pop music, she has become a superstar. A new pay-cable TV special - having its premiere on Home Box Office this Saturday at 10 P.M. - very clearly shows why.

''Cyndi Lauper in Paris'' was filmed March 12 on the final date of a world tour that included Australia, Japan and Italy. This performance took place at the Zenith Theater before thousands of fans, the bulk of them presumably French. Ms. Lauper's few words of French are decidedly fractured but her musical repertory clearly has no difficulty leaping language barriers. At several points, the audience even sings along in English.

Over the years, Ms. Lauper has carefully cultivated a kooky persona for public consumption. The clothes tend to be outrageous; the startlingly squeaky speaking voice is out of the school of Dody Goodman. A bit of this act is incorporated into the opening moments of this CBS Music Video Enterprises special as the star snaps pictures at several of the more familiar tourist sites in Paris (''Hi, here I am!,'' she shouts goofily). But when the cameras move inside the Zenith, Ms. Lauper becomes the purely professional entertainer, her program as carefully planned and tightly coordinated as anything Paris may have seen in the days of Josephine Baker or Edith Piaf.

The look is important, of course. The mass of reddish blond hair has that messy, ''electrified'' look that only hours of careful coiffing can achieve. The costumes are relatively restrained but effectively dramatic, beginning with a chic fur-trimmed hat and black coat and gradually being whittled down to a mini miniskirt and a kind of latex corset with garter hooks. For the concluding numbers, in a sort of Daisy Mae mode, Ms. Lauper wears simple blue jeans, carefully torn at the knees, and Eiffel Tower-souvenir braces.

But these are merely the accouterments. At the heart of the performance is an incredible and unflagging energy. Ms. Lauper not only wails and belts the lyrics; she skips, stomps and twirls around the stage, all the while making sure her musicians keep up with her. The producer, John Diaz, and the director, Andy Morahan, used 14 cameras. There are frequent pans of the audience, but the focus is kept tightly on Ms. Lauper and her first-rate group: Rick Derringer, guitarist; David Rosenthal, keyboardist; Sue Hadjopoulas, percussionist; Kevin Jenkins, bassist, and Sterling Campbell, drummer.

While the energy remains high-voltage throughout, there is a good deal of variety in the material. The songs range from the aggressive ''Change of Heart'' to the soulful ''Blue Boy'' (written for a friend with AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome), from the Brecht-Weill-like ''Money Changes Everything'' to the quietly lyrical ''Time After Time.''

It is a cleverly constructed program, allowing the star to prance wildly or drop to her knees and pound the stage. A couple of times, she climbs to the top of platforms on either side of the stage. There are some special lighting effects but they are not intrusive. The spotlight is, as it should be, on Ms. Lauper, and she makes the most of it. There is nothing very kooky about this shrewd and memorable performance.

A version of this review appears in print on June 18, 1987, on Page C00026 of the National edition with the headline: 'CYNDI LAUPER IN PARIS,' ON HOME BOX OFFICE. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe